Lockdown, a cure that’s worse than the disease

LIKE many of us, I have been heeding the advice of the Government for the past two months to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives. But if the agenda really is to save lives, it’s time we started thinking about ending this lockdown, with no more dithering.

If we persist in keeping the pause button pressed on our society for months more, the dangerous consequences already starting to corrode our collective psyche and the nation’s physical health will be magnified to levels worse even than the coronavirus itself.

Take one example: Draconian social distancing measures led the Southern Health NHS Trust in late March to ban friends and families from all hospitals, including mental health units.

This means that for nearly two months, the most vulnerable in our society, those who need more than anything to rebuild connections with those dearest to them, have been denied a vital pillar in their right to recovery.

A second unintended consequence of the lockdown is that visits to hospital accident and emergency departments in England have fallen to their lowest level since records began.

It seems not yet to have occurred to Government officials that part of the year-on-year rise in community deaths might be down not to this deadly virus, but to a reluctance to seek medical help in times of crisis.

Perhaps this is what Boris Johnson meant when he hinted that the public had heeded the ‘stay at home’ advice too strongly. Moreover, physical health is taking hits across the medical spectrum, from delays in life-saving chemotherapy appointments to heightened uncertainty over maternity care.

Boris Johnson hopes the UK can return to ‘near normality’ by July. But two more months of this social stagnation may open irreparable wounds across the nation, leaving many of us wondering: Was it really worth it?

- Advertisement -

If you appreciated this article, perhaps you might consider making a donation to The Conservative Woman. Unlike most other websites, we receive no independent funding. Our editors are unpaid and work entirely voluntarily as do the majority of our contributors but there are inevitable costs associated with running a website. We receive no independent funding and depend on our readers to help us, either with regular or one-off payments. You can donate here. Thank you.